Synopsis: Turn of the 20th century Russia. Two partners in crime
who produce and distribute flagellation erotic divise two seperate schemes
which will be beneficial for each other. Yohan (Sergey Makovetskiy), an
immigrant to the country, desires the daughter of a wealthy middle class man,
Liza (Dinara Drukarova), who is herself revealled to be far from an angelic
figure of innocence. His grinning compatriot Victor (Viktor Sukhorukov),
meanwhile, is obsessed with a pair of Siamese twins Kolia and Tolia (Alyosha
Dyo and Chingiz Tsydendambayev), step sons of Doctor Stasov (Aleksandr
Mezentsev) whose blind, hostile wife Ekaterina (Anzhelika Nevolina) Victor is
able to weave himself into her life by pure luck.

After a runaway cult hit like Brother (1997), Balabanov threw a curveball from modern day crime drama to a period
grotesquery involving erotica and murky moral lines. Admittedly Balabanov, until his sudden death at fifty
four in 2013, wasn't exactly known for being conventional or safe. His career
is sadly blighted for me with Brother 2
(2001) - a bad sequel already but with a legitimately racist monologue
halfway through about African Americans - but the original Brother was a mean, fascinating film which shows how it wouldn't
stop is exceptionally low budget from restricting its intrigue and great
moments. Of Freaks and Men, made after, is alien to any accusations against the
late Balabanov being objectionable as
its confrontational and subversive. Brother
and Of Freaks and Men are not that
opposite of each other either beyond their surfaces, one merely the underworld
as depicted in the then-modern day, post Soviet Union Russia of hoodlums
struggling to survive whilst Of Freaks
and Men takes the glamour of classic Russian period drama, the realm of
authors of Chekhov, and shows the
grimy, porn obsessed underbelly of hoodlums struggling to survive.

From http://img.rp.vhd.me/4613514_l4.jpg

Despite the steam powered boats
and post Victorian fashion, this is a place where individuals of any class,
from the middle class to the housemaids, is complicit to the events taking
place rather than innocents. Be it the daughter ingesting erotica secretly
before being in front of a camera for them, when cinematographic experiments
are started by Yohan and Victor, or fathers of these children who are easy to
manipulate. It's an incredibly nihilistic view. Where even the villains are far
more complicated and absurd in spite of their deplorable acts. Yohan coming off
as comedic with his Buster Keaton
stone face, and obsessions both with his senile "aunt" who
participates in the films. His obsession with dipping carrots in sour cream
continually in many scenes or his crippling bouts of epilepsy. Victor with his
Cheshire cat, giant teeth a buffoon who, whilst able to weave people around his
fingers, eventually gets caught metaphorically with his pants down when someone
else has a gun. It's parallel to the Russian literature I've been able to read
where characters are permanently flawed and neither the morally bad or good,
merely existing. It actually evokes the first, completed half of Gogol'sDead Souls (1842), where every character is gullible or those who
are compelling to follow in spite of their cruel, monstrous behaviour, only
taken to a further extreme here. The follies and complexities of people shown
here in a twisted chamber piece where even the sole innocents, the twins, are
actual children and suffer still from one of them developing alcoholism.

From http://ctb.ru/wp-content/uploads/1998/06/Of-Freaks-and-Men-Actors-3.jpg

Technical Detail:

The drastic change of tone from Brother (gritty, low budget, modern
Russian streets) to Of Freaks and Men
is drastic even if they act like bedfellows on the same subjects. A large part
of this is the explicit references to silent cinema, shot in sepia and with
intertitles emphasising important dramatic points in the narrative which can't
be shown onscreen without coming off as exposition. It's a pastiche of the
beginning of cinema that however doesn't lead the film to the fantasy of Guy Maddin's work. Instead it's both a
beautiful but utterly grungy aesthetic that keeps you off guard. Explicitly it's
the important connective tissue of the subplot following the beginning of
cinema, from photography to moving pictures and showing the technical
innovation not as a triumph but immediately used for pornography, for men in
top hats and suits to sit glumly and politely in rooms as the less than a
minute long loops play out, What The
Butler Saw before any longer forms of porn came to be. The attention to
detail - the elaborate wall paper to costuming - doesn't gloss over the
inherently griminess the film has tonally, an elaborate aesthetic but one where
for every beautiful shot by cinematographer Sergei
Astakhov the viewer eventually imagines there's a grotty under passage or
backstreet just out of shot of every exterior scene.

The music, lush orchestral
compositions or accordion ballads, are also carefully chosen as much for Balabanov to also drag such high art
into the gutter as an exploitable quantity. The film briefly demonstrates the
beginning of recordable vinyl as Kolia and Tolia are pushed into a musical
novelty act, one capable of actual talent but through a transgressive photo on
their vinyl recording also figures of exploitation even when they are free of Victor
and his teethy grin.

From http://www.evropafilmakt.com/2014/wp-content/gallery/films/des-monstres-et-des-hommes.jpg

Abstract Spectrum: Grotesque/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Of Freaks and Men is actually
difficult to quantify in terms of being "abstract". Its defiantly an
unconventional film, strange and utterly different even from other films which
took direct influence, good or bad, from silent cinema. A lot of it is a very
straightforward narrative, which undermines it being an unorthodox film in
presentation. Instead the film, as is visible from the beginning, is an appropriate
follow up to Brother is showing how
crime and hoodlums haven't really changed from before in the director-writer's
eyes, piercing the aura of nostalgia the past can have by showing how the
elegant gowns will be stripped off and lovely decorated rooms are stages for
ladies to be laid over tables bare to be whipped by senile old women role-playing
punishments. Quaintness in this erotic mixes with the complicit manipulation which
pushes the viewer into a difficult scenario of whether these depictions in the
film are problematic or psychologically complex, for someone like Ekaterina to visibly
be a victim dragged in front of a camera there also to be the housemaids openly
enjoying their employees being manipulated and also Liza, our heroine, to be
someone possibly complicit in her situation as she is a victim too. It's a
bleak film even if there's a sick humour to a lot of it, where the closest
thing to a stereotypical male hero is a fop behind the camera who eventually
becomes one of the first cinema heroes, chased by groupies, but having forged
his reputation first by complicity filming Yohan and Victor's work.

From http://media9.fast-torrent.ru/media/files/s4/yf/le/pro-urodov-i-lyudej.jpg

Personal Opinion:

Now if we were just ranking this
as a weird film, it definitely is weird. A strange micro drama where porn shots
comes off as a farce as well as sordid tragedies. Where there are numerous
scenes where sexuality are purposely lead into uncomfortable transgressions. A
lot of the film can be seen as a very dark comedy, with no side to safely hide
behind. As a result Of Freaks and Men
is a lot more difficult for the better to digest as its meaning is more
complicated than its surface. It's not a "strange" film necessarily,
carefully told especially with its intertitle narration, but startling to
witness. One for years I've wanted to revisit and now having a significantly changed taste in cinema which can appreciate its virtues and dank undertows.

No comments:

Post a Comment

"I could go on for hours with more examples. The list is endless. You probably never gave it a thought, but all great films, without exception, contain an important element of no reason. And you know why? Because life itself is filled with no reason." - Rubber (2010)

About Me

I am 28 years old and hail from England. For the last few years I have been a growing fan of cinema and have decided to take the next step into blogging about it and any other tangents that about the things I'm interested in I get onto.